


proper dead

by muined



Category: The Death of Stalin (2017)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, canonical sausage metaphora, evil monologues, the usual batshittery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muined/pseuds/muined
Summary: Malenkov is haunted.





	1. a talking-to

**Author's Note:**

> Post-mortem sequel to “Stagecoach Again,” my first Б/М outing, which was admittedly pretty wonky. I.E.: more dumb bullshit from me to you. Good ol’ mindfuck. Titled after a Zhukov line in the movie.

The Council of Ministers convenes for an unofficial meeting following the Beria incident, the afternoon of the same day. They gather, standing and coated, in a Kremlin anteroom, to discuss the immediate aftermath. In a few minutes they are all to head off to the Bolshoi for a prescheduled viewing of Shaporin’s latest, an opera about the December Revolution. Khrushchev has been uncharacteristically cold and laconic, Mikoyan impassive, and Molotov in his usual good humor, his spirits never once having flagged. Malenkov, for his part, feels halved and vacant, like a split clamshell: profoundly alone. There has been a ringing in his ears since the gunshots earlier.

“Quorate,” Khrushchev announces when Bulganin has shut the door behind him.

“Ah, ahem, next steps. Briefing the people. Are we thinking a f-formal denunciation…?” asks Bulganin, looking to Khrushchev and making circles with his hands.

“It’s important that the _truth_”—Khrushchev pauses meaningfully—“about his past behavior is put out there, but the Soviet people have just had a shock, and Beria still has his gang of followers.”

Kaganovich sighs. “So we can wait to tell them he’s dead.”

“Right. One step at a time. Denounce first.”

“Maybe he’s on the run,” Bulganin proposes.

“He might well be!” Molotov agrees cheerfully, latching onto this narrative in spite of the fact that he had of course only hours earlier borne witness to Beria’s impromptu cremation. “On a spree in the Riviera!”

“Sure,” says Khrushchev. “And a little further down the road we can announce that we’ve managed to hunt him down and apprehend him.”

“With an icepick! Bop! What continuity!”

“Eh, I don’t know, Slava.”

“I…I can take care of the funeral arrangements this time,” Malenkov offers, feeling he should contribute something, wanting to be of service. His voice comes out choked despite his best effort to maintain composure.

His co-conspirators, none of whom have paid him any mind to this point, now stare at him with shock, bafflement, and something unplaceable.

(Pity, Georgy, it’s pity.)

This is a hiss in his ear. Malenkov swats at his shoulder, thinking an insect has buzzed by, and shivers in its wake. The rest of them are silent, until:

“Cor, Top Boy, just how dense are you?” asks Mikoyan, finally, astonished.

“What?”

“There isn’t going to be a funeral this time, Georgy,” Molotov says brightly, clapping him on the shoulder.

“What do you mean?”

(Not as such, not formal-like, but if you should wish to set up your own personal shrine to me I wouldn’t object. Little out-of-the-way corner with a few icon paintings. Some flowers and beads’d be nice.)

“Look, I know you two were Laurel and fucking Hardy, but you have to accept that he wasn’t a—”

“Sorry, Nicky, but did you guys hear that?” Malenkov asks the assembled group. He puts on his glasses, which he’d taken off in anticipation of a public appearance. But even with their faces in focus, he can’t place the voice he’s hearing as one of theirs. In fact, he would swear it was—

(Little old me? You’re slow, yes, Georgy, we knew this, but come now. Mm, about that shrine. If you could spare a piroshki every now and then, leave it out on a tray before my visage, that’s all I’d ask.)

“Hear what?”

“N-noth—excuse me,” Malenkov coughs. “I need a moment.” He hurries out of the room, holding his own elbows still, feeling a chill even through his coat.

(Don’t worry, my dear General Secretary. I don’t hold a grudge—I’m beyond that now. Of course, I do seem to be stuck with you, so you should know my honest opinion. To begin with, you’re rouged up like Lenin beginning a post-mortem career of slatternry.)

“Slatternry?” Malenkov whispers.

(You look dead and also like a whore, what with the makeup. Isn’t it nice, being honest with one another?)

“If you’re going to be sick, aim for a potted plant!” Molotov calls after him. “Just a tip!”

Malenkov ignores him, avoids eye contact with the Red Army minders milling around the hall, finds the nearest closet and ducks into it. He shuts the door behind him and exhales heavily, back to one wall. In the absence of background noise, Beria’s voice comes clear as day: (Miss me?)

Malenkov’s legs give out under him; he sinks down the wall to the floor. When he closes his eyes he sees Beria on the backs of the lids, blurred, stenciled there, an afterimage, a magic lantern projection. “Am I losing my mind?” Malenkov whimpers. He’s so cold that his teeth are chattering.

(No, Georgy, don’t give yourself too much credit. Hallucinating me would require style.) Beria looks like himself, albeit dead white and wavery, as if a scrim’s been thrown over him. (I imagine that your descent into a more complete imbecility will be garden variety dribbling-progressively-greater-volumes-of-semolina-down-one’s-shirtfront. And I’m not a manifestation of your conscience, either; Lord knows you couldn’t produce these special effects with that budget. No, I’m my own master. Keep your eyes closed, I’m not finished with you.)

Malenkov does as told. “Where did you come from? What are you?” he asks.

Beria’s image shrugs. (The far side of the fucking moon.) He is limned in darkness, frontlit as he’d be in an interrogation, from the perspective of the interrogatée. (And: a ghost, I suspect. Your karmic punishment for doing me in, and mine for, eh.) He shakes his hand noncommittally: any number of things.

“I thought ghosts only haunted places.” Malenkov’s whole body is, by this point, shaking like a tuning fork.

(I daresay you’re big enough to qualify as a place.)

_He doesn’t mean it_, Malenkov thinks, automatically reassuring himself.

(I assure you I do. Now isn’t that a neat trick? This is an intimate arrangement, this flavor of collectivization; I can rifle through all the files you have up here. Not all that much material to work with, of course. I’m sure that after a while you’ll grow used to me, and begin to think of my presence as an extension of yours. Just as it’s always been, hm? You clinging to my coattails. In fact I’d say this is only fair: you’ve been dear to me.)

“That’s. Sweet of you?”

(Excuse me, my dialect. I mean your care and feeding have come at great expense, my pet. I’ve hauled you out of the damned earth on more occasions than I can count. The Aviators’ Case, remember that? Your sojourn to Central Asia? I’ve resurrected your career so many times I may as well be a fucking witch doctor. And for my troubles you had me killed. But of course I should’ve expected as much; I watched you wash your hands of Yezhov.)

“It wasn’t like that.”

(Well, now’s your chance to make it up to me. To business: Mikoyan and Bulganin are self-preservationist yes-men. Molotov and Kaganovich are servile ideologues, and rudderless now without their master. Someone else has to counterbalance Khrushchev.)

“What do you mean?” Malenkov sputters helplessly, lost.

(Oh, shall I write you a fucking Short Course? It should have been me; I should be alive. But _circumstances_ have conspired against me. Such as things are, I’m appended to you, so if a course correction is in order I may be forced to take the reins.)

“I don’t, I don’t follow.” 

(What, have you never seen a dancing bear?)

Malenkov suddenly feels Beria’s cold thumb and forefinger around his left and then his right wrist: his right arm, then his left, are jerked above his head in turn, like a marionette’s.

(Ugh, like so much dead weight. I’ll have to train you up.)

Beria’s grip on his wrists slackens and his hands fall back into his lap. “What was that? What did you do?”

(A special relationship entails special privileges, no? You’ve always been called my puppet. ‘When Beria says jump…’ I’ll save my parlor trick for special occasions, though, Young Pioneer’s honor—only when things are dire. In an emergency there’s always total possession.)

Malenkov feels somehow relieved by this prospect, at handing over control, even as he is horrified by it. 

(The rest of the time I think I’ll be content to advise,) Beria continues. (You’ve always been a good listener. And in any case, I suppose, you’ll have no recourse but to listen. It’ll take some getting used to, I’m sure, but then those who already know you are inured to blank looks and long pauses. Oh, you could pretend to be on the phone if you have trouble with keeping yourself from saying things aloud, as you seem to. Good lord, are you wearing lipstick?)

“It’s lip _liner_, it’s for definition. For the cameras. It’s matte,” Malenkov says miserably.

(Oh, I did miss you. Anyway. In time our compeers may begin to notice your views hewing closer to mine. You may clash with Khrushchev; he may, ironically, suspect that you’ve developed a will of your own.)

“Lavrenti,” Malenkov hiccoughs, overwhelmed as the reality of his situation catches up with him. “Please!” He’d thought he was done weeping for the day; Valeria had scolded him for it earlier.

(Hyperventilating now, are we? Quite unattractive, my Melanie. Your foundation’s already cracked, but if your mascara begins to run I’ll have to off myself. Myself, this time.)

Malenkov winces.

(Right, yes, the wound’s still fresh. I’m sure it’s very hard for you. Whereas it looked very easy, from where I stood, for you to sit idly by and do nothing while I was trussed up and prepared for slaughter. Oh, yes, another item: your tip about my knife—shall I compel you to let Khrushchev and company know the circumstances in which you encountered it? Go on and find a paper bag to breathe into. And forgive me for my presumption; I would think you’d be relieved to have your other half back so soon. Tell me, how long’ve you had that panic button installed at the head of the table?)

“It wasn’t my idea. You have to believe me, it was all Khrushchev, and it was all the day of, the day of the. You know. Today.”

(Today, yes, my scapegoating, back in the abattoir. I hope Khrushchev hasn’t convinced you that that was anything but face-saving on his part. Tying off another link in the sausage-garland of history. I was a convenient figurehead for the era that our new New Man wanted to cauterize. Nothing more.)

“Georgy! We’re leaving for the theatre!” Bulganin yells from the hall.

“Coming,” Malenkov calls back, hoarsely.

(Yes, go on, join them. Have fun. Take in some culture, and enjoy the facade of camaraderie before it’s put away. Of course, I’ll be here. You’ll never walk alone, is it. Mm, relax, I’m only going to kiss you.) And so he does: with his eyes closed, Malenkov sees Beria lean in toward him, white as a cameo portrait, and anoint his left and then his right eyelid with coldnesses, with reverse-brands, to remind him always that he’d unyoked himself from the living Beria. Through plain inaction he’d cleaved himself away to stand alone. (Good girl. Ugh, don’t cry, you need me. How would you ever have gotten along without me?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malenkov is that kid who kills his Tamagotchi and cries for a week about how he destroys everything he touches. Click through to the second chapter for a secret alternate porn ending, if you also hate when Comrade Bulganin gets in the way of spectral hanky-panky.


	2. redoubled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised: ghostfucking. Happy Halloween!

“Georgy! We’re leaving for the theatre!” Bulganin yells from the hall.

Malenkov smothers his response and fails to stand. (What? You don’t want to miss out on the privilege of riding three-to-a-seat in Khrushchev’s towncar, do you?) Beria asks.

Malenkov shakes his head. “It’s, um. I can’t.”

(What do you mean you can’t? You managed with me and Kobulov.)

Before he can properly explain himself, Malenkov hears footsteps and a sneeze from the hall. “Allergies, still?” asks Molotov’s voice. Malenkov tenses and holds his hands over his mouth, on reflex.

Mikoyan replies: “Nicky an’ Little Adolf Four-eyes did a fine job with the funeral, but nobody thought to hand out a list of flower arrangements that wouldn’t debilitate a seventh of the Presidium. Eh, sixth. If it were up to me, heads’d roll.” He sneezes again. Malenkov feels a strange conspiratorial satisfaction, like that which he’d felt listening in on phone conversations with Beria beside him.

(Inside, now,) Beria corrects him. He decides he wants a drink.

“Poor Anastas,” Molotov coos indulgently, in the voice usually reserved for his dog and Polina. “Poor Georgy. Where’s he gone?”

“In the loo wif his feet drawn up on the seat, having a cry, I shouldn’t wonder.” Mikoyan imitates Malenkov’s sniffle-sob: “Snnk-snnk-snnss-snfsnnfss. Dewlap in a twist. I mean, I’d expect as much. Never was telling where one ended and the other began.”

“Hm? Where who began?”

“Top Boy and Deadums. Our dear departed L P-for-poncy-urinal-cake B. Y’know, speaking of,” he says thoughtfully, “I’m actually starting to warm to the idea of a funeral for the ol’ sootpile. The image of his little specs propped up atop an urn. And then we could all throw tomatoes. Honor his legacy, yeah?” And then, with the closure of a door, they’re out of earshot.

(Well, that demonstrates my earlier points nicely. Do they sound like loyal allies to you, hm?)

“Dewlap?” Malenkov repeats, gingerly palpating his own neck.

(That’s putting it kindly. Crepe papery, I’ve always thought. But what you should’ve gotten from that exchange is the fact that Khrushchev and those two will force you out of office within the year, absent my intercession. You’d do well to resign yourself to my presence. I’ve settled.)

“I am resigned!”

(Yes? I sense a dissatisfaction.)

“Well, I have a cramp. Hold on.” Malenkov readjusts. “Okay, I’m resigned.”

(Together again,) Beria says sardonically. (Jubilee. But you should keep an eye on them at the opera tonight, why don’t you—oh. Oh, yes, I see.) Beria is able, by whatever means a behind-the-eyes-ghost is privy, to take stock of Malenkov’s half-erection. (You’re in heat. Well, I suppose I can see fit to sort you out.)

“I’ll just be a minute,” Malenkov yells to Bulganin and whoever else, through the door. “Actually, I’ll meet you guys there! I mean at the theatre!”

(Yes, I think they get the idea. Alright, then, drop trou, yes, knickers off.)

Malenkov obeys, unbuttoning his pants and bunching them over his knees. With some difficulty in the confined space he shoulders out of his coat as well. 

(Oh, I see you put on a whole new little outfit for theatregoing. Nice to see that my death didn’t impede your ability to deliver on your _duty to the people_. Your leadership skills may be wanting but you do make a fine paper doll.)

“That is not fair.”

(Isn’t it? Of as much substance, and as manipulable. Alas. This does bring you off, doesn’t it? I always suspected. Well, go to it, then. Attend to yourself.)

Breathing heavily, Malenkov reaches into his briefs. He buries his face in the crook of his arm, realizing too late that his foundation will almost certainly leave a smear on his sleeve. 

(How does that feel?)

“Um, nice. Warm.”

(Loquacious as ever. Now, allow me to me slip into something more comfortable.) And just like that Beria is the image of his younger self, his hair still black and more profuse.

Malenkov feels very flattered, and then, instantly, inadequate. “Turn back, will you?”

(Father issues much?)

“What? No.”

(A-huh.) Beria turns back. Suddenly Malenkov’s shirt is unbuttoned, hole by hole from his collar down. “Did you...I’m guessing that that was…?”

(Just me. Ah, yes, the corset. How’s that working out for you?)

“Girdle. Actually, I sort of wish it had more in the way of chest support.”

(I don’t.)

Malenkov laughs a little, out of habit: “You wouldn’t.”

(I must say, I rather expected eyelets and drawstrings.)

“Oh, no, it’s very modern. Elastic. It’s just cinched at the bottom.” He begins the involved process of removing it: a hasp behind his back, over-the-shoulder straps, and then there remained the task of wriggling out of it.

(Oh, don’t bother, it won’t get in the way.)

Now that he thought of it: “Hey, that was really unnecessary, earlier, by the way. When you brought it up in front of the others.”

(Really? You’re still sore about that?) He sighs, causing hairs on the back of Malenkov’s neck to stand on end. (One: none of them caught it; I in my infinite subtilety. Two: am I supposed to be taking a life lesson from this? A little late. And three: I know you liked it. You always so enjoyed dressings-down from Stalin. Incidentally, you’ve stopped stroking yourself; I was trying to make this very easy for you, but I overestimated your ability to multitask. Do you want to be late for the opera?)

“I.” Malenkov bites his lip and returns to his task. This has all been very appallingly exciting, but Malenkov likes a routine, an order to things, in these instances, and with Beria he never knows what to expect next. “I don’t.” 

(Well, if you want a job done right.)

Beria doesn’t apparate, exactly, but Malenkov feels a weight descend and settle atop him like ash falling out of the air, as if the darkness has coagulated. He slides to the floor, supine, the breath knocked out of him: he’s heard before of people suffocating in bed from ghosts sitting on them. Then there was that painting of the gargoyle crouching on the dreaming woman’s bosom.

(Must I lead you around crumb by crumb? Open your legs.)

With this, Malenkov remembers something. “Lavrenti. The charges. Those girls, Lavrenti.”

A whistling exhalation. (Why is that—of everything, why do you people always...right. You knew. You knew. And what, pray, did you do about it? I’ll give you a hint: it’s your favorite thing to do, and you do it all the time. Right now, for instance.)

“Is this a riddle?”

(Sure. The poor have it, the rich want for it. Ah, it might well be your passivity that makes you a perfect medium. The human planchette. But, Georgy, I need you to _do something_, for once in your life.) The darkness takes Malenkov’s hand and guides it between his legs—another tendril of it strokes his cheek. (It’s times like this I wish I was still, unh, corporeal.)

“You’d, uh, have me, again?”

(Yes, you great tease. This time I’d work dry, I think, you do deserve rough handling; you have been very wicked. But then you are too, I suppose, my consolation prize, and I intend to keep you functional.) Beria, or his spectre, holds Malenkov’s chin and kisses him, probingly. Malenkov’s arm goes cold from the elbow down as it comes under Beria’s jurisdiction. He feels like an insect embalmed in ether. Beria has established a rhythm—in fact a past comment of Beria’s regarding sewing machines comes to mind. Then there’s the cold visegrip that the presence at his neck has curled into. And finally: a happy fugue. When Beria has finished with him, his semi-corporeal tongue withdraws from Malenkov’s mouth and one of his feelers dabs a runnel of saliva from his chin. Suddenly, remembering something, Malenkov laughs, all the breath gone out of him.

(What?)

“Um. Lenin prostituting is a pretty funny image.”

(I thought so. Glad you’ve come to appreciate my humor. A little after the fact, mind.)

“This is the weirdest conversation.” Feeling returns to Malenkov’s forearm as Beria takes his leave of it, and he pulls his pants back on.

(And whose fault is that?) Cordially, Beria rebuttons Malenkov’s trousers for him as he sits up. (Lord, but you look rough. That much makeup: really quite shockingly inappropriate for funeralgoing, provided one isn’t the corpse.)

“This morning you told me it looked tasteful.”

(Yes, well, this morning was an epoch in which flattery could get me somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ve heard beating off in a closet is actually the traditional first executive exercise of all Soviet premiers. Congratulations.)

Bracing himself against the wall, Malenkov wobbles to his feet. “It wasn’t ‘beating off,’ so.”

(Try telling the Secretariat a ghost made you do it. Alternately, you could suggest that a Red Army officer—that colonel earlier, Brezhnev, he was handsy.)

Malenkov puts his glasses back on. “Do you really think they’ll notice?”

(Your hair hasn’t moved—I don’t think it’s capable—but in my estimation you’ve acquired that just-fucked look, yes. And our colleagues are no strangers to the aftermath of Kremlin closet shags, if Khrushchev is any indication.)

“What? Who’s Nikita doing?”

(Who’s doing him, rather. Zhukov. Christ. I’ll have to point these things out to you.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, a month in and all Mal uses this for is outsourcing his decisions: “What should I have for lunch, Lavrenti?” Because I’m an insane person there’s much more _tDoS_ and assorted other USSRPF fic forthcoming. Er, from me. Hopefully from you, too!


End file.
